Longtime readers know that my hair is never on fire. It’s ablaze now after the lawless rampage by Musk and his minions. I’ve already called Elon Musk a Nazi, but it becomes more obvious every day. I didn’t think there was a worse person alive than Donald Trump. That has changed in recent days, Elon Musk is the worst person alive with Trump as his enabler. That makes them both Nazis in my book or on my blog.

I think some helpful tips on Nazi spotting are in order, hence this repost from January 2024. It’s even more relevant now than it was then: We didn’t have a Nazi president with a Nazi prime minister. Make that Chancellor. What’s a Kaiser of Chaos without a Chancellor, after all?

Elon Musk, however, is no Graf Otto von Bismarck. FYI, Graf is German royal lingo for count. Add a T and you have graft, which is what Trump Regime Mach-Two is all about.

Chancellor was Hitler’s title when he came to power. Musk’s only title is DOGE but if he were the duke of Venice, the city would have sunk long ago. As a naturalized citizen, it would be illegal for him to be president but when has illegality stopped the Trump Gang? In a word: Never.

As you ponder who goes Nazi, a reminder that some people are Fascist Fellow Travelers who may be convincible. Most Trumpers, however, have not only imbibed the MAGA Kool-Aid,  they’ve swallowed it whole. That’s why I call them lost souls.

I’ve made only two tweaks to the main body of the post by adding a musical last word and a link to a relevant post from later in 2024.

Let’s set the Wayback Machine to 1941.

Dorothy Thompson was a rock star foreign correspondent in the interwar years of 1919-1939. Her focus was the European beat. She was among the first American journalists to warn of the danger posed by Hitler, Mussolini, and other dictators.

Thompson spent enough time in Nazi Germany to have a good feel for who goes Nazi. She distilled her opinions in an August, 1941 piece for Harper’s Magazine, Who Goes Nazi?

Here’s how Dorothy Thompson began this classic piece:

“It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.”

She nails the type of people who would or would not become Nazis. The article is 83 years old but feels ripped from the 2024 headlines.

Here’s how Thompson ended this must-read piece:

“It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.

Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.”

The same analysis applies to the most vexing question of our time: Who Goes MAGA? I’ve been perplexed by some of the people I know who have gone MAGA. I’m less puzzled after reading Who Goes Nazi? I recognize some of the archetypes laid out by Dorothy Thompson.

Who Goes Nazi? remains an important and relevant article. Please share this post or the article itself with your friends and family. Beware, take care.

The last word goes to Billy Bragg & Wilco with lyrics by Wood Guthrie: